Famed announcer Ian Eagle‘s son Noah is just the latest broadcaster to follow in his father’s footsteps.
The 25-year-old younger Eagle continues to move up the ranks, as he recently joined NBC Sports as the play-by-play voice of Big Ten Saturday Night—the primetime Big Ten Football game which will air each week on NBC and stream live on Peacock.
Prior to his new gig at NBC Sports, Eagle has been doing play-by-play for a number of years, including calling a Syracuse road basketball game for local radio in 2018 while his father called the game for CBS, calling Los Angeles Clippers games for radio since 2019, calling Nickelodeon alternate NFL broadcasts the last two seasons, calling college football for CBS in 2021, and calling college football and basketball for Fox this past year.
Of course, having the last name “Eagle” in this industry certainly doesn’t hurt, but Noah has been responsible for his own meteoric rise in the world of broadcasting. And his father, at least for the first time publicly, discussed watching his son continue to grow through the ranks during a special Father’s Day episode of The Adam Schefter Podcast.
“On a personal level, Schefty, it’s the best,” Ian told Adam Schefter regarding Noah moving back east for his NBC Sports gig. “Just the idea that we can grab lunch, that we can hang out, that he’ll be 35-40 minutes away (if there’s no traffic). That, to me, is the best part, because, of course, with his life on the West Coast, there is the reality for him of building a new life and creating a new life. And that’s really important and imperative, but we forget what it actually means for the parents…this is a game-changer for me and my wife and my daughter. It just makes me happy, really happy.”
It’s also a game-changer for Noah’s career; one which was helped jump-started by watching his father.
“I think when you’re around someone as much as I was and you respect them even more so, it just is natural to have that osmosis feel,” Noah said regarding his style emulating that of his father’s. “He never sat me down and said, ‘Here’s what you need to do: X, Y, Z, to become this great broadcaster.’ It was more so that I just watched him. I watched how he interacted with people. I watched how he carried himself, how he prepared, and then he’d give me tips, especially when I asked him. And when I got more into it and immersed myself in it, when I got to college, that’s when it only grew and that bond strengthened.
“I do think a lot of what I do comes from him. And then I try to put my own spin on it. That’s the key of anything you do, especially in a performance-based aspect of a job. You want to make sure you’re still being true to yourself. I can’t put a percentage on it, but I’d say a vast majority of what I do is just a derivative of what he’s brought to the table.”
Ian recalls that Noah wanted to be a “television dentist” (whatever that is) growing up, but after following his father closely, it was only a matter of time before he followed in his footsteps. They both recall one story in particular as kind of an Aha moment for the younger Eagle. Ian, the play-by-play voice of the Nets for YES Network, took Noah to Kevin Garnett’s introductory press conference after the now-infamous blockbuster trade, in which the Boston Celtics traded KG and Paul Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets.
That car ride home, in which, Noah asked Ian several detail-oriented questions catalyzed what now is an up-and-coming career that has captured the attention of people in the industry, like Schefter.
“I really mean this. If I could buy stock in a young broadcaster,” Schefter said. “I would buy as much stock in Noah Eagle as I possibly could and that’s about as high as a compliment as I could pay to somebody…I’ve never said that about anybody else until I [saw] Noah. And I would love to buy stock in Noah.”
Noah hasn’t reached his father’s status just quite yet, but he’s certainly on the Joe Buck path to do so.
